Keira Knightley portrayed Elizabeth Swann in four of the blockbuster films but revealed that the sudden fame was “traumatic.”
Keira Knightley has admitted that starring in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise helped launch her career but also left her struggling with lasting trauma.
The 39-year-old, a two-time Academy Award nominee, first appeared on screen 25 years ago as Sabé in Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace. Since then, she has starred in Bend It Like Beckham, Pride & Prejudice (2005), and more recently the apocalyptic comedy Silent Night.
But it was The Curse of the Black Pearl in 2003 that propelled her into international stardom. At just 17, she played Elizabeth Swann, the governor’s daughter and love interest of Will Turner, portrayed by Orlando Bloom.
The movie’s success led to Knightley reprising the role in Dead Man’s Chest, At World’s End and Dead Men Tell No Tales. Yet the actress later confessed that the experience came with a heavy toll.
In a 2016 interview with Variety, Knightley described filming the first movie as “traumatic.”
“I found it pretty horrific,” she said. “I’m not an extrovert, so I found that level of scrutiny and that level of fame really hard. It’s a very precarious age, particularly for women. You’re in some ways still a child. It was traumatic, but it set up the rest of my career.”
By her early twenties, the pressure reached breaking point. She admitted in 2008 that she turned to hypnotherapy to avoid panic attacks on the BAFTA red carpet.
In 2018, Knightley revealed she suffered a mental breakdown at 22. Speaking to The Hollywood Reporter, she said: “I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder because of all that stuff. I went deep into therapy.”
What made things worse was the impossible standard she set for herself.
“I was never good enough. I was utterly single-minded. I was so ambitious. I was so driven,” she told Harper’s Bazaar in 2023. “I was always trying to get better and better and improve, which is exhausting. It does have a cost.”
Even so, Knightley says she now admires her younger self’s determination: “I am in awe of my 22-year-old self, because I’d like a bit more of her back. And it’s only by not being like that any longer that I realise how extraordinary it was.”
Today, the actress has found a healthier balance.
“I’m unbelievably lucky now,” she told Variety in 2018. “My career is in a place where I really enjoy it, and I have a level of fame that’s much less intense. I can deal with it now, and that’s great. But at the time, it was not so great, and took many years of therapy to figure it out.”
Featured image credit: Disney
